What Friends Are For
by Laura Schiller
Summary: AU for "Glease". Because the Unique we all know and love would never have joined Kitty in making fun of Marley behind her back. Trigger warning: eating disorders.


What Friends Are For

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Glee

Copyright: Ryan Murphy Productions

Unique had been suspicious of Kitty from the start. The chance to experience a genuine sleepover with genuine, cisgendered girls was exciting, and it had to be admitted that the Krispy Kremes were delicious, but when Kitty threw on a newsboy cap and began singing "Sandra Dee" in falsetto – and Sugar, Tina and Brittany laughed about it – Unique knew that she should never have come.

As Kitty minced past her with a toss of her brunette wig, Unique reached out to pluck it from her head.

"'_Won't go to bed 'til I'm legally' – _hey!"

Kitty grabbed for the wig, but Unique tossed it to the top shelf of the closet. She folded her thick arms over her substantial frame and glared at the smaller girl with contempt.

Sugar and Brittany giggled from their spot on the bed, obviously mistaking this for the next round in the game, but Tina had the grace to look embarrassed. The karaoke track ran on in the background, unnoticed.

"What's your problem, lady-boy?" sneered Kitty.

"Oh, way to be original." Unique rolled her eyes to hide the stab of shame she still felt at hearing names like that. "Now, I don't know about you girls," including the three on the bed, "But my mama taught me never to make fun of people behind their backs. Especially not a guest in your own house."

"C'mon, it was just a joke!" came Sugar's grating voice. "She didn't mean anything by it."

"Yeah, don't be so _sensitive_," said Kitty. "Just because you think you're a girl, doesn't mean you have to overcompensate by being a sissy. Besides, I'll say all that to Marley's face anytime you like. She knows she's a fake."

"Besides," said Brittany, staring vaguely up at the ceiling. "We've all had worse than this from Coach Sylvester. You should know, Mercedes, you were there."

Unique didn't bother correcting the cheerleader as to her name. Brittany had a point; the social atmosphere at William McKinley could be downright poisonous. If Vocal Adrenaline had been tough, at least the rest of the school had preserved a certain level of politeness. Here, the concept didn't even seem to exist. Still …

"Just because Coach Sylvester's rude, doesn't mean we all have to be," Unique retorted. "I know bitching at each other is kind of a hobby at this school, but it's not funny when it's happening to you. Tina, Sugar, Brittany – how would _you_ like it if she went all Rizzo behind your back?"

"She couldn't," said Brittany serenely. "I'm impossible to mimic. Also, a way better dancer. Not that it wouldn't be cute to watch."

Sugar, however, flushed almost as pink as her nightgown, and Tina's mouth became very tight.

Kitty threw up her hands. "Fine. The door's over there."

"Are you serious?"

For a moment, even Unique was thrown. She knew she shouldn't have been surprised, but this was level of bad manners was beyond everything so far.

"Totally," said Kitty. Two livid red spots had appeared on her cheeks. She was vibrating with rage. "I should never have let your fat, black, drag queen ass darken my door in the first place. If you don't pack your bag, get changed and waddle on out of here in five minutes, I'll get my daddy to throw you out."

The other three girls were no longer blushing. Instead, they had gone pale. The silence filled the room like smoke from a loaded gun.

Unique picked up her bag, and then Marley's, and paused by the door.

"You said you threw this party because you were hoping to make some friends," she said quietly. "But not at this rate, you won't."

It was some satisfaction to her to see, from the corner of her eye, Sugar flashing a thumbs-up behind Kitty's back.

Marley was taking longer in the bathroom than anyone should have, and Unique was worried. Still, she would have been willing to respect the other girl's privacy if nt for the sounds she heard coming through the door.

Sobs .. and retching.

Unique didn't think. She burst through the door and fell to her knees, holding back her friend's long brown hair as the half-digested mouthful of Krispy Kreme landed in the toilet.

"Marley, what – what's wrong? Are you sick?"

She remembered, with a queasy twist of fear, all the donuts she herself had eaten. Was the package past its expiration date? Was there a flu going around? Could she catch it?

"Kitty … Kitty said … she said it would make me lose weight," Marley sobbed from behind her cupped hands. "I didn't … know … it would be … like _this!_"

"The hell _you_ wanna lose weight for?!" Unique's deep voice rose to an incredulous, ear-piercing squeal that few natural-born females could have managed. Marley was a twig with eyes and hair. Three of her could have fit into Unique's nightgown. There was nothing Unique wanted to do so much as bring her home and feed her a bowl of her mama's best gumbo, and Marley wanted to lose weight?

"Why do you think?" Marley stared up at her with wide, wet, reproachful blue eyes.

Unique heaved a sigh. "Okay. Okay, look. You're gonna tell me everything. I won't leave you alone until you do. But right now, we gotta bounce. Kitty's kicking us out. Kicking _me _out, really, but you don't feel like spending the night here either, do you?"

"She did what?" A welcome flash of indignation brought some color to Marley's papery cheeks.

"She did." Unique put on her bravest diva smile. "Guess this house just ain't big enough to hold all of our awesome."

She reached for the two bags, which she had dropped by the bathroom door, and handed the shabby leather one to Marley, who gave her a tired, watery smile.

There was some awkwardness as they both changed out of their night clothes, their backs to each other, trying not to bump elbows in the tiny, neon-bright room. Unique glanced down at the folds of her own belly with a surprising pulse of anger. Did Marley really find it so terrible to be like this? Could she be Unique's friend, the best friend she had in the world, and still somehow despise her?

Once they were presentable, and once Marley had rinsed her mouth and splashed her face with ice-cold water from the sink, they "bounced", slowly and in perfect silence, downstairs and out the back door. Mr. Wilde, absorbed in Fox News on the living-room couch, didn't even hear them. Unique's silver hybrid was parked outside at the curb, an afterthought behind Sugar's scarlet Lamborghini and the Wilde family's enormous SUV. She opened the door for Marley, whose hands were still shaking, and fished a half-empty roll of orange Breath Savers out of the glove compartment. Marley took one without comment, her hair swinging forward to hide her face.

"Now," said Unique brusquely, starting the ignition. "Tell me what the hell is going on."

Marley swallowed hard.

"It's my Sandy costume," she whispered, her beautiful voice worn down to a thread. "You saw, today … it doesn't fit anymore. I'm getting bigger. I … I'm afraid of ending up just like my mom."

Unique thought of obese, good-natured Mrs. Rose behind the lunch counter, bearing patiently with all the nasty comments thrown her way.

"Huh. You mean a nice woman who works hard at her job and loves her kid?"

"You know what I mean!"

"Yeah." Unique snorted. "You mean fat. Like me."

"Oh, Unique, no!" Marley's voice cracked even further. "Don't say that. You're not fat."

"It's not an insult, sweetie, it's true. Unique is fat. And you know what else? She likes it."

She glanced away from the empty suburban road for a second. Politeness warred with shock and disbelief in Marley's face.

"I'm serious. How many girls like me can actually fill out a bra pre-op?" She shimmied a bit to illustrate her point. "With everything else that's wrong with Unique's body, this is actually something it got right."

"But don't you see?" Marley broke in frantically. "Don't you get it? This – _this_ is what I'm talking about. You're not just going to put up with a body you hate. You're going to fix it."

"Yeah, with surgery," Unique retorted. "Not making myself puke. There's a difference."

"Kitty made it sound - "

"_Fuck_ Kitty!" Unique slapped the steering wheel in fury, at her friend as much as the cheerleader. "No, on second thought, I take it back. That's a punishment I wouldn't wish on anyone. But you know what I think about that girl?"

"What?"

"I think she shrank your costume herself, that's what."

"That's crazy. Why would she … " Marley faltered, seeming to realize that Kitty was, indeed, more than capable of doing such a thing. "What gives you an idea like that?"

"I watched _Mean Girls _like a hundred times," Unique confessed with a shrug. "I've been studying girls all my life so I could learn how to be one. Especially how _not _to be one. Kitty's jealous of you. Anyone can see that."

"What's there to be jealous of?" Marley sighed bitterly. "I don't have a dad, I shop at the Salvation Army, and I've never even been kissed."

"You're prettier, more talented, and people _like_ you. Why do you think Kitty's so obsessed with staying popular? She wants to be liked so bad and she doesn't even know how."

Marley reached up awkwardly to adjust her newsboy cap. Unique's irritation faded into pity – for her, even for Kitty, and just a little for herself. She knew exactly how it felt to be trapped in your own skin, tempted to rip yourself apart just to escape it. She remembered crying herself to sleep, silently because her mother would never understand, after being hit or called names after school. She remembered the short-haired stranger in the polo shirt and chinos who regularly stared back at her instead of her reflection.

Marley was one of the first people, after Kurt and Mercedes, with the wisdom and compassion to see past that stranger to the woman beneath. She had made Unique feel beautiful when all the rest of the world told her she was a monster. The least Unique could do was try to pay some of that back.

"I know when you feel like … like this, you start to see all kinds of things in the mirror. Like fat when there isn't any. But trust me, Unique's eyes are working just fine. Unique can see you're just as beautiful, inside and out, as you always were."

She was speaking to Wade as well as to Marley. Perhaps Marley could sense this, because she leaned into Unique's round shoulder like a child. Her breath was still sour, candy and all, but Unique would not have pushed her away for the world.

"Thanks," she whispered. "You're the best friend I could ever ask for, you know that?"

"You too, honey," said Unique. "You too."


End file.
